In a conventional point-of-sale electronic credit card transaction, the transaction is authorized and captured over a network connection. In the authorization stage, a physical credit card with a magnetic stripe is swiped through a merchant's magnetic card reader, e.g., as part of a point-of-sale device. A payment request is sent electronically from the magnetic card reader to a credit card processor. The credit card processor routes the payment request to a card network, e.g., Visa or Mastercard, which in turn routes the payment request to the card issuer, e.g., a bank. Assuming the card issuer approves the transaction, the approval is then routed back to the merchant. In the capture stage, the approved transaction is again routed from the merchant to the credit card processor, card network and card issuer, and the payment request can include the cardholder's signature (if appropriate). The capture stage can trigger the financial transaction between the card issuer and the merchant, and optionally creates a receipt. There can also be other entities, e.g., the card acquirer, in the route of the transaction. Debit card transactions have a different routing, but also require swiping of the card.
Occasionally, network problems, such as network unavailability or network latency, interfere with routing of the payment request from the card reader to the card issuer. Such network problems usually result in rejection of the transaction. The merchant is notified of the rejection and can try to process transactions later when the network problems are resolved.